


Invariant

by captainoflifeandlemons



Category: Ars Paradoxica (Podcast), The X-Files
Genre: Anthony Partridge mopes in the Blackroom, Esther Roberts strikes fear into the hearts of her inferiors and her superiors alike, FBI golden child Sally Grissom, FBI tarnished bronze child Sally Grissom, Gen, Time Travel Shenanigans, aka his office, mentions of Nikhil Sharma; Carmen; Petra; Helen Partridge; and (indirectly) Maggie Elbourne, or y'know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-06 06:25:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8738254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainoflifeandlemons/pseuds/captainoflifeandlemons
Summary: "Time can't just disappear, it's a universal invariant!""Not in this zip code."-"Pilot," The X-FilesAgent Sally Grissom was the pride and joy of the FBI's TTA program—until her partner, Nikhil Sharma, turned traitor and left her neck-deep in an official investigation into her own loyalties. Although her name was cleared, you don't have to be a particle physicist to tell when people have started treating you differently because of something like that (although she is, of course). So when Division Chief Esther Roberts summons her to a meeting, Sally can't help but feel that it's to punish her. When she's assigned to work with Anthony Partridge, a statistical analyst who's been chasing fairy tales ever since his wife's disappearance, she KNOWS that it was to punish her. (Or in other words, the ars PARADOXICA/X-Files oneshot that the world needed.)





	

Sally hovered outside the room, taking a moment to collect her thoughts, when the door was opened by a dark-haired woman who—despite being several inches shorter than Sally—had the kind of imposing aura that accompanies people who are six feet tall  _without_ heels. 

"Agent Grissom?"

Sally barely managed to bite back her standard it's- _Agent_ -Grissom response in time. "Yes, that's correct."

"Esther Roberts. A pleasure to finally meet you." The woman held out a hand and Sally shook it, following her into the office. "I've heard a lot about you since you transferred here. You were a physicist before joining the FBI?"

It was phrased as a question, but Sally could tell that Roberts didn't need to ask. She struck Sally as the type of woman who never so much as entered into a conversation with another person without knowing their professional history, birth date, and favorite cereal type. And she'd have to be, in this job. "I like to think I still am, actually. I was recruited as a physical scientist out of grad school before going through the TTA program. You'd be surprised at the amount of science that goes into stopping crime!"

Robert's smile widened from a calculated curve into something genuine. "I don't know that I would. I was a Technically Trained Agent myself, once."

It wasn't until then that it clicked for Sally. This was _that_ Roberts, the one whose reputation had bled through the Academy until it was strong enough to become legend. (Nikhil Sharma said the same thing about Sally, once.) 

"But on to the point," Roberts continued. "Please, take a seat. Agent Grissom, are you familiar with an Agent Partridge?"

If Roberts was a legend, Partridge was cautionary tale told to the new recruits, a _see fig. a_ in the chapter on not losing your head. "Not personally, although I know the name. He studied statistics at Oxford before coming back to the States and joining the Bureau as a mathematician and information technology specialist. Generally viewed as the greatest statistical analyst in the department." The next sentence— _or he was, until his wife disappeared_ —hung unsaid on the corner of her mouth. 

The look in Roberts' eye showed that she knew exactly how Sally had been about to finish the thought. "Very good. Here's what you likely don't know: Agent Partridge has grown increasingly focused on a series of unsolved cases known as the X-Files. They have relatively little in common aside from their...supposedly anomalous nature, but I'm confident that your expertise will be just what Partridge needs, regardless of the particulars. You've been assigned as his partner on these cases, and will be expected to make regular field reports assessing the validity of the work and your suggestions regarding the continued use of federal resources for this endeavor."

"Uh-huh," came Sally's response after a moment. She cleared her throat, trying to draw back on whatever reserves of professionalism she had left. As always, they were somewhat depleted. "You want me to discredit Agent Partridge's work?"

If she didn't know better, Sally would think that the hurt look on Roberts' face was real. "Agent Grissom, you seem to have misunderstood me. All that we're expecting is for you to work with Agent Partridge and report on the facts." At _we_ , the woman's eyes flickered—just for the briefest of moments, so rapidly that Sally almost missed it—to the back corner of the room. A man sat there in the sort of silence that translates over to phrases like "I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." Sally hadn't noticed him when she came in.

There was a moment's pause. "Agent Roberts, am I being punished?"

"I don't know what you're—"

The last of the professionalism, gone. "Am I being punished for what happened with Nikhil Sharma?"

"You've been completely cleared, as you well know. What happened with the former Agent Sharma was unfortunate, but you were in no way accountable," Roberts said, her voice stiff. It was clear that this wasn't the conversation that she wanted to be having.

What would have been a derisive laugh in another time and place came out as a huff of breath. "My partner went rogue, kidnapped a recruit, and disappeared off the face of the planet. I let all of it happen. How am I _not_ accountable?"

"Agent Grissom," Roberts began. "A word of advice, not as your superior, but as a...friend. You need to forgive yourself—and you need to move on."

"Yes, ma'am," Sally responded dully. Roberts was wrong; Sally _had_ forgiven herself for trusting Nikhil in the past, or at least, she had begun to. What she couldn't forgive was that a part of her still trusted him. Even after everything that happened, a part of her still believed he was innocent. So long as that was true, so long as there was doubt, she couldn't move on.

The man in the corner coughed, and Roberts sat up straighter in her chair. "You're to report to Partridge's office immediately. And Agent Grissom—"

Sally had begun to stand, but she halted while the corner of Roberts' quiet smile twisted into a smirk. 

"—good luck."

It took Sally longer than she'd anticipated to find Partridge's room. She spent a solid half hour convinced that Wyatt had given her false directions as a joke, and it wasn't until she actually knocked on the door (which featured a handmade sign with the phrase "The Blackroom" scrawled across it) that she was convinced it was anything more than a storage closet. 

"Sorry," the voice inside responded, only the barest taste of sarcasm in the tone. "Nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted."

She opened the door. Anthony Partridge, in a chair at his desk, didn't even look up as she entered. "Sounds like the right place for me, then."

Now he turned. "Well, that isn't true. It's Agent Grissom, isn't it? I've read most of your papers. You're the TTA's golden child."

"I _was_ the TTA's golden child. I'm more of a tarnished bronze these days."

That earned her a laugh. "Oh, I doubt it. What can I do for you?"

"I was about to ask you the same question. I'm your new partner." She tried a smile, realized it probably looked as fake as the cheeriness in her voice sounded, and let it slide from her face.

Partridge laughed again, louder this time. "Okay, I'll accept the tarnished bronze comment, then. You must be, for them to assign you here. You're a physicist, right?"

Sally wondered how many more times she'd be asked that question by people who knew the answer. "Actually, I'm a nerf herder."

"What?"

"Never mind," she sighed. She'd hoped that working with a man who was accused of not being able to tell science from fiction might mean that someone would finally catch all of her references, but it seemed that that wouldn't be the case. "Yes, I've got a PhD in physics."

Partridge, who held a bag of sunflower seeds, offered her one. She declined. "Pity. In most of my work, the laws of physics rarely seem to apply."

"And what is that work, exactly?" Sally glanced down at his desk, but there were too many papers on it to tell which he'd been absorbed in when she entered.

Partridge's eyes shone, as though he'd been waiting for her to ask that. When he spoke, beneath the bitterness she heard something approaching curiosity, or even—hope.

"Do you believe in the existence of time travel?"

* * *

 

"Not _now_ , Anythony!" Sally's hands flew methodically through the motions of patching up wound, mind not involved in the process, mind not working at all. 

He tried to cough, or laugh; she couldn't tell which, she was just relieved to see that, while no sound came out, no blood did either. "Don't you want to hear my dying confessions?"

"Quit being melodramatic There'll be time for you to tell me where you buried the pirate treasure later." Sally went to run a hand through her hair, remembering just in time that her gloves were covered in blood. "And you're not dying."

It was true. There had been a moment when she thought that—but no. He would be fine until they could get to a hospital. 

"Lucky I had a a doctor with me, hm?"

"I would have been here sooner if you had told me what you were up to," Sally said, helping him sit up. "You've got to trust me, Partridge." 

He looked up at her, and she could tell that he hadn't slept in days. Neither had she, of course, but that was hardly new for her. "I do trust you. It's Esther Roberts I have my doubts about. You need to stop believing she's on our side."

 _Our side_ —it felt right, hearing him say that. For so long, Anthony Partridge had been fighting a one-man war against the world. Sally considered herself easily worth at least three people when it came to conspiracy-chasing, so his numbers were growing quickly. "It's not that I believe in her, not really, not always," she responded carefully. "It's like someone I know says: I _want_ to believe. Anyways, at least I'm putting my mistaken trust in friends and not suspicious government contacts."

Anthony pulled at the edge of his bandage until Sally gave him a look. "Hey, my suspicious government contacts got us this far, didn't they?"

The snort of laughter Sally gave echoed around the warehouse, a touch louder than was probably advisable. "Yes, and so far the evening is going swimmingly!"

"The night is still young," Anthony protested, drawing as much ironic drama into the words as he could manage—which was a lot, when you were Anthony Partridge. "And besides, I thought you liked Carmen. She certainly idolizes you."

"I do like Carmen, although she could really pick a better role model. She'll outshine all of us one day. I was referring to Pandora, your 'friend' from a cloak-and-dagger science team that may or may not exist. Honestly, if you're going to use an alias, choose one with a little more implied benevolence."

Anthony held out his hand and Sally (gloves now off) pulled him into a standing position. "Well, it looks like we both have trust issues, then."

There was the sort of pause that normally follows comments that hit a little closer to home than intended. 

"I didn't mean—!"

Sally cut him off with a wave of her hand. "It's fine. I know what you meant. But I'm...I'm starting to move past what happened with Nikhil." There was a noise from somewhere outside the building, and her fingers twitched to her gun. "What are we doing here, Partridge? I still don't have the full story."

"Well, in a twist of even worse timing than I usually have," her partner began, then stopped. His eyes flicked to her, then to the ground, and there was a moment, _she knew there was a moment_ , when he considered dodging the question. But in the end, Anthony had spent too long searching for the truth to keep it from anyone else. "We're looking for Nikhil Sharma."

Sally didn't remember sitting down, but suddenly she was on the floor and it was Anthony's turn to be bent over in concern, to offer her a hand up. She didn't take it, getting slowly to her feet on her own a moment later. "That's why you didn't tell me."

He didn't answer. He didn' t need to. She waited for an explanation anyways, waited for something, anything to validate _this_. Then she turned and began to walk for the door. 

"Sally..."

It was too late. She trusted Partridge. She would do almost anything for him. But not this. This was her past, and that wasn't something anyone had the right to make her relive—especially not when time travel was involved and the reliving might be literal. There was nothing he could say.

"...my wife is with him."

Nothing except that. 

Making no move towards him but no longer edging away, she waited for the rest of the story. If there was one thing Partridge had always been talented at, it was weaving the improbable into something approaching logic. But if he spoke, his words were drowned out by a hum that echoed through the space, drumming into her skull so hard that she bit her tongue. At least, she thought she had; she tasted blood, or maybe iron, in the back of her mouth. The world was shaking, or she was, and everything lit up with an intensity reminiscent of floodlights. Black—white—red—the colors burned themselves into her skull, leaving their brand on her brain.

And then it was over, and nothing had changed: the empty dark of the warehouse, Anthony's ragged breathing, her coat and her glasses and the weight of her weapon. 

Her eyes adjusted. Coat, glasses, gun, Anthony—but the warehouse was no longer empty. A figure stood on the far side, visible only as an outline.

There was a pause that cradled centuries. And then—

"Nikhil?"

—and Anthony—

"Helen?"

—and when no response came, Sally again, less certainly—

"Petra?"

But the woman who stepped towards them with the quickened stride of someone who has learned the hard way that time is not on their side was not any of these people. Hers was a face far more familiar and far more disconcerting.

"Well," said Sally Grissom, one hand tapping against her side as her gaze locked onto her younger self, "I suppose I should start at the beginning."

**Author's Note:**

> My gift to batwomanvevo for the ars PARADOXICA secret santa! The initial segment follows the first couple of scenes with Scully in the X-Files pilot episode fairly closely, although most of the dialogue isn't directly quoted from the show (with the exception of "Sorry, nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted;" "In most of my work, the laws of physics rarely seem to apply;" and "Do you believe in the existence of [extraterrestrials]?"). I took some liberties with Sally's past because, okay, fine, I just really wanted to include Nikhil Sharma.
> 
> The second half doesn't stick close to any one specific episode, although of course Scully and Mulder have spent their fair share of time in sketchy warehouses. Maggie Elbourne is "Pandora," Anthony's informant; Petra is the recruit who was (supposedly) kidnapped. Although she's technically filling a different character role here, I see Esther as a Skinner-type figure.
> 
> In the years that follow, Grissom and Partridge's investigations draw them closer and closer to a mysterious government organization and a conspiracy that spans the decades (literally)—but that's a story for another day. 
> 
> I almost had Sally filling Mulder's role, but the more I thought about it, the better I liked this setup. Oh, and I know pretty much nothing about the FBI, so I apologize for the inaccuracies that doubtless exist.


End file.
